Praise for Alpha Beta
"This book comes at the perfect moment—as we rediscover the importance in early reading of `cracking the alphabetic code. The story of how that code came into being is a fascinating one, and Man is the ideal writer to tell it." —Times Educational Supplement

"A richly absorbing exploration, from B.C. to PCs, of the evolution of the most fundamental `characters of our cultural history, the alphabet we so much take for granted. John Man writes with a compellingly restless curiosity and immediacy. The ever surprising, exotically detailed narrative in his informative book makes it as undryly enjoyable as a successful archaelogical dig of one of Alan Mooreheads colorful histories of African exploration." -David Grambs, author of The Describers Dictionary and The Endangered English Dictionary

"Text that is crisp, taut, and as clear as a bell.... A fascinating story with many a beguiling subplot along the way." —New Scientist

"Letter perfect—the best histories and mysteries of our ABCs!" —Jeff McQuain, author of Never Enough Words and Power Language

• English languageetymologyhistorylanguagelinguistics50 book challengealphabetmoochednonfictionswapped
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